Lawyers for the former couple last month sent Metro a cease-and-desist order to stop the company from distributing “Pamela Anderson Uncensored.” Claiming copyright infringement, they said Anderson never consented to the use of her name or image for commercial use or advertising purposes.
The letter also demanded that Metro hand over all remaining copies of the tape or face a lawsuit seeking statutory damages.
Several years ago, Anderson and Michaels obtained a federal injunction and won a multi-million-dollar lawsuit to stop the release of the tape, which Michaels said has also stopped several other companies from releasing the tape.
"These websites have been popping up since the day the tape went public," Michaels said. "But since our settlement, we usually do a cease and desist, and most of them go away."
However, Metro this month went ahead with plans to offer “Pamela Anderson Uncensored” on its Playhouse line. In fact, the company is using the controversy in its promotional copy for the video.
“Here is the movie that they tried to ban: Brett Michaels (lead singer with the shock rock group Poison) and Pamela Anderson,” the site says. “This movie was the subject of a massive $90 million lawsuit where Pam and Brett tried to get this movie destroyed. Fortunately, a few copies escaped the destruction order and we are able to finally bring you the incredible uncut action.”
Michaels claimed Metro "basically told me and Pamela to screw off. I keep telling them, 'You guys are going to lose, and you're going to pay our legal bills. You're just going to end up paying us a bunch of money, and the more you sell, it's just going to be even worse for you.'" And they're like 'No, we've got a ton of pre-orders, we're going to do it.' So we'll see what happens. She's on it and I'm on it."
However, Jeff Mullen, president of All Media Play, the company contracted recently to represent Metro Interactive, told XBiz that Metro is doing nothing illegal in selling the video.
“Metro Interactive secured the rights for this DVD through legitimate channels, and at this time is double checking to make sure that everything is able to move forward," Mullen said.
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